Posted
by
Soulskill
on Friday July 29, 2011 @02:36PM
from the science-plus-politics-equals-news dept.

The Bad Astronomer writes "As posted earlier on Slashdot, a Forbes Op/Ed claims there is a 'gaping hole in global warming' theories, based on a recent paper. However, both the Forbes article and the paper on which it's based are themselves seriously flawed. The paper has been excoriated by climate scientists, saying the model used is 'unrealistic' and 'incorrect,' and the author has a track record of using bad models to make incorrect conclusions."

(And very rarely does anyone say why a model is unrealistic or incorrect.)

On the contrary, climate scientists say *exactly* why the model is wrong [drroyspencer.com]. (Not that discussion is published on Roy Spencer's website.) Unfortunately the details don't fit between two commercials, and many simply don't want to hear it anyway.

Which is funny you bring up religion, since the author of the paper "debunking" global warming is a creationist.

yeah my heckles got up pretty quickly reading the paper, first when I noted that one of the authors is considered a crank, and then it fairly rapidly violating the "a good scientific paper should concentrate on one scientific fact only and establish it well" rule of thumb for detecting crank science. Noting a possible error in a minor part of a certain theory and then rushing to claim it invalidat

You know, whether or not the original article is BS, why is the very first point that the rebuttal piece linked above makes the fact that the original article uses the word 'alarmist' umpteen times? This is like counting the number of times the word 'denier' appears in the rebuttal. Both sides call each other names.

If you really believe that humans are not responsible for climate change in a significant capacity, and you see people running around talking about mass extinction and migration, then you'd probably call them alarmists.

If you really believe that humans are responsible for climate change in a significant capacity, and you see people running around dismissing climate change as nothing more than politics or researchers looking for more grants to keep their jobs in spite of the massive threat to, well, everything we know, love, and take for granted, then 'denier' is probably not even the meanest term you could come up with for them.

But talking about either one hasn't got anything to do with science, just like most schoolyard name-calling hasn't got anything to do with the science. There are industrial interests on both sides and not that many people who both care about solving the problem rather than calling a halt to civilization while also demonstrating the capacity and civility to talk about the issue without resorting to this kind of thing. Consequently, I can't help but wonder how many interested, semi-educated, but very-far-from-climate-experts like me there are out there who look at all this stuff and just scratch their heads.

This is like counting the number of times the word 'denier' appears in the rebuttal. Both sides call each other names.

But I didn't see the word 'denier' in the rebuttal. All I saw was the footnote:

* Mind you, of course, I use the word "denier" quite a bit when discussing this topic, but in this case the shoe fits. When you deny overwhelming evidence, you’re a denier. Scientists trying to tell people what the science is telling them aren’t alarmists. They’re scientists. And as you can see from what other climate scientists are saying, what the Forbes article is based on apparently isn’t good science.

This two labels are equally dangerous in addressing global warming. This isn't a problem that half the world can solve without the help of the other half. By using either of these two terms, you're invoking a with-us-or-against-us mentality that is dangerous. Since these two labels are diametrically opposed, it does nobody any good to use them. Dismissing studies on global warming as 'alarmist' doesn't allow any information to be garnered from these reports which is really sad. Dismissing opponents as 'denialist' doesn't allow you to differentiate between people who acknowledge climate change but don't think it's man made and people who deny any climate change at all. Which is also very sad, there's people that want to do something about climate change but aren't sold that we're the cause of it. Why shut them out?

Like most things in life, this isn't black and white. By polarizing everyone involved, you halt the flow of information and push back the date where we can work together to solve this problem. There is a whole spectrum of solutions that lie in front of us, using the terms 'denialist' or 'alarmist' prevents us from selecting one of them as a cohesive group looking to move forward.

I applaud The Bad Astronomer from refraining from using the label 'denialist' as often as the original article used 'alarmist' (easily once per paragraph). I don't know why he included that footnote... I thought he had made an effective point without resorting to name-calling.

I've done a meta-analysis and found that since the number of people using the word "denier" outnumbers the number of people using the word "alarmist" by a significant factor (p<0.05), the deniers must be touching a nerve, and therefore are right (p<pi/e).

Okay, Prof. A says the world is a sphere. Prof. B says the world if flat. Prof. A has a extensive list of evidence coalescing on a coherent picture. Prof. B has a large collection of counterarguments against various specific pieces of Prof. A's list. Prof. A believes that, as a society, we'd be best off in working out how to best prosper in a spherical world. Prof. B believes it would be premature to go ahead with that before we've had a debate and opened our minds to the reinterpretation of all of Prof. A'

You know, whether or not the original article is BS, why is the very first point that the rebuttal piece linked above makes the fact that the original article uses the word 'alarmist' umpteen times? This is like counting the number of times the word 'denier' appears in the rebuttal. Both sides call each other names.

Because a journalist isn't supposed to take sides. The journalists job is to take the science and communicate what it actually says to the general public. It is not their job to spin science o

The argument of the relative middle ground is *precisely* how astro-turf organisations like Heartland and Marshall spread FUD. They take an extreme position, drum up a lot of noise, and then watch as "reasonable" people say "the truth must be somewhere in-between". This has been documented in history time and time again [amazon.com], and is orchestrated by the same people [youtube.com]. It is really fascinating to learn about how this part of the public discourse works.

One of the interesting things about all of this is that key people, such as Frank Luntz [wikipedia.org] freely admit that they are manipulating the discourse on climate change, and it simply makes no difference.

If there was a Satan and he did buy souls, I'd wager a good chunk of the population of this planet would probably sell it to him for an iPhone 5. The fact of the matter is that people never do the sensible thing, they never consider long-term consequences. Even without well-funded oil-friendly groups like the Heartland Institute, it would be damned hard to convince people that puking hundreds of millions of years worth of CO2 into the atmosphere in the space of a few centuries was a bad thing, and even ge

If you actually read the paper [mdpi.com] and not the incredibly hyped press releases, the paper basically disclaims the validity of its own results. Note the following paragraph, immediately before the conclusions:

Our preliminary work on this issue suggests no simple answer to the question. We conclude that the fundamental obstacle to feedback diagnosis remains the same, no matter what time lag is addressed: without knowledge of time-varying radiative forcing components in the satellite radiative flux measurements, feedback cannot be accurately diagnosed from the co-variations between radiative flux and temperature.

The entire paper is about to trying to analyze the feedback from the co-variation between radiative flux and temperature-- this sentence basically says that, in their analysis, the analysis cannot be done accurately.

Basically, the paper does not "blow holes in global warming"-- what it does is say that this particular technique is not able to accurately discriminate the feedback function.

and by saying that it is not possible to track this function, this blows a hole in the previous theories.

No, it doesn't blow any holes in previous theories because none of the previous theories use correlation coefficient of the random variations as a means to calculate the feedback parameters. It's a new technique.

It's actually a kind of clever way to try to back out the feedback parameters out of the random noise in the data set. It's rather a pity that they say it doesn't work, but that's the way it goes-- not everything you try works. Basically, they're saying that the radiative feedback should be instantaneous, while the non-radiative feedback will lag the forcing function, so if you look for the lag part, this will tell you about the non-radiative feedback. But, unfortunately, they don't have a good physics-based model of how much the non-radiative feedback will lag by-- in essence, they have to have the problem solved already in order to solve it.

In any case, though, the paper conceded the basic premises of anthropogenic global warming right from the start: what it's trying to analyze is how strong the effect is, not whether it is there. Even if their technique worked, it would tweak the model, not "blow holes" in it.

The only holes it appears that could have been created are a matter of degrees, which is basically what the entire argument boils down to anyhow. If the strength of the effect is negligible then that could have proven one side correct, if the strength is severe then that could bolster the other. The answer being " this cant be measured" only allows both sides to keep calling names and cherry pick their arguments from the same source ( if they feel like doing th

I'd take it a step further - I think that they're making the claim that there is *no* particular technique that can accurately discriminate the feedback function. And even though that's actually a fairly trivial assertion to make, and one that isn't particularly disagreeable to any scientists (since models are only models, and models of particularly complex systems are so chock full of guesses that one can hardly use them to make any useful predictions), it is one that laypeople and CAGW activists tend to

Here is the beginning of that paragraph, which you so conveniently left out:

"Determination of whether regression coefficients at various non-zero time lags might provide a more accurate estimate of feedback has been recently explored by [14], but is beyond the scope of this paper. Our preliminary work on this issue suggests no simple answer to the question...."

There, fixed that for ya. The first sentence you quoted is clearly referring to the immediately preceding sentence, not to the conclusions that follow.

Further, what the entire paper is about, is how well the climate models being shoved at us reflect reality. Their conclusions are that the climate models cannot predict this phenomenon, as they claim to. These are not the authors' own climate models, they are models taken from the IPCC reports. So there is no contradiction there.

So their conclusion is perfectly valid: if there is no way to "accurately diagnose" the effects of feedback, then the models we are told to believe in are deeply flawed. And that is what this paper shows.

Jeez, dude, do you think we're idiots? Here is the beginning of that paragraph, which you so conveniently left out:

"Determination of whether regression coefficients at various non-zero time lags might provide a more accurate estimate of feedback has been recently explored by [14], but is beyond the scope of this paper. Our preliminary work on this issue suggests no simple answer to the question...."

Fine. The sentence which I didn't quote can be summarized: "Also, some other people tried a different analysis technique on the regression coefficient, but we aren't going to talk about that."

...So their conclusion is perfectly valid: if there is no way to "accurately diagnose" the effects of feedback, then the models we are told to believe in are deeply flawed.

But they didn't say that there is no way to accurately diagnose the effects of feedback. What they said was that they couldn't do it from this particular analysis technique.

Which is why his paper must be examined on its own merits, or lack of same. If you want to make a real argument, then examine and logically attack the paper itself, not the guy who wrote it.

The paper and the ideas were attacked on the merit of their arguments. You can read an email discussion on the topic on Roy Spencer's website [drroyspencer.com]. There is no academic misconduct here, or Galileo versus religious consensus narratives. Pretty much everyone disagrees with Spencer for good reason. Perhaps you agree with him, in which case, you might find the academic discussion on the topic of some interest.

I can't really assess the accuracy of the paper, but, apart from the fact you rightly point out, the paper is about the analysis of short term circumannual effects, which may, or may not, have any relevance for climate modelling. Spurious at best.

This guy is a professor at the (not very rigorous*) institution I did my undergraduate work at. (This is the "University of Alabama in Huntsville", not the larger and better-known University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.) I don't remember him specifically, but I know there was a cadre of anti-global-warming "climate scientists" there with a politico-religious axe to grind and who were pretty clearly not doing science for knowledge's sake.

It's notable that if you google this guy's (Spencer's) name, the first couple hits are to "www.drroyspencer.com/".

Nobody that I know who is actually a prominent scientist tries to pimp their public persona to this degree, or (tellingly) makes a big deal about the title "Dr."

*They really do have shitty academic standards. I graduated summa cum laude with a BS in physics, yet had never written $\vec x$ (we never did formal vector algebra), and wound up having to take four "remedial" undergrad classes at the Univ of Arizona where I am finishing up grad school.

Well, in addition to that, Spencer has a history of publishing spurious analyses which have been debunked over and over again. It's not only global warming he is railing on about, he obviously is an expert in evolution, too, and therefor, naturally, a proponent of intelligent design. Signing an "evangelical" statement which basically says "God provides, therefor global warming cannot be real" is just the icing on the cake. Do I need to mention the Heartland Institute or his self-proclaimed title of "Glenn Beck's climate expert"?

In other words, once again, the denier gang has trumpted a questionable paper by a questionable guy from a questionable institute. This has truly become the AGW-denier version of Intelligent Design's "teach the controversy" scam.

Siding with the evidence is not the same as being biased. Developing an intelligent opinion does not make one biased. Even believing GW doesn't exist isn't biased in and of itself. Getting paid by ExxonMobil introduces a conflict of interest and thereby bias, however.

Nonsense piled on top of nonsense. The paper is based on Spencer's infinitely adjustable model. The fact that ALL the IPCC models produce one thing and Spencer's toy produces another is not a feature in favor of Spencer, not without some extraordinary evidence.

Obviously someone on the payroll of the Heartland Institute, someone with a history of bullshit claims, someone who discredited himself a scientist by endorsing "intelligent design", however, has a reputation of being unbiased and can be believed. No, the bad astronomer has the burden of proof. Sure.

And guess why I being me, a scientist by education, don't give a flying fuck about your Al Gore propaganda? What is it with you guys? Did he scare you when you were young? Touch you inappropriately? Over here, we discuss science, not propaganda crap like that. Much to learn you have, young denialist.

I noticed the same point being brought up in the recent feed page when the first story was submitted, yet the editors didn't seem to pay any attention to it. Then a day or two later a different story gets posted with the same information.

Uncharitable interpretation: The editors aren't doing their job.

Charitable interpretation #1: A large group of people voted for the first submission, while a different large group of people voted for the second submission. The editors are just being agnostic and giving us what we (collectively) ask for.

Charitable(?) interpretation #2: The editors know that climate stories get lots of discussion, so they figured two different stories on the subject means we get to have twice as much "fun" yelling at each other about it.

A large group of people voted for the first submission, while a different large group of people voted for the second submission.

I for one voted for both as interesting. imo 'interesting' is value-free - and both POVs regarding the same paper are thrilling (as a substitute for interesting...) - I don't understand the/. modders attitude to misuse 'interesting' as 'I agree'.

Thank you. I kept scrolling, hoping someone would already have brought this up. What happened to polluting the sea, smog, acid rain, cancer, asthma? What happened to sustainability, fairness? The shift to a debate over "global warming," which can be argued for decades, has co-opted what should have been plainly obvious discussion of environmental policy.

We cleaned up a whole bunch of that stuff. The environmentalist 'alarmism' of the 70s and 80s had an effect, and as a result laws were enacted to reduce the damage to the environment. LA air is a lot cleaner now, despite many more cars than were in the 80s.

Appeal to authority. Very typical of religious movements - you've just replaced the Pope with nasa.gov.

I'll start believing in CAGW when *any* alarmist makes a clear, concise list of observations that would falsify their hypothesis, and then we all try *really hard* to look for those observations, and are completely unable to find any. That's called science.

Appeal to authority is not always fallacious. For instance, if your mechanic says "The reason your car is overheating and your smelling combustion products in your coolant is because your head gasket is blown", he is speaking as an authority, and is very likely right.

This sort of reasoning is fallacious when the person in question is not an expert. In such cases the reasoning is flawed because the fact that an unqualified person makes a claim does not provide any justification for the claim. The claim could be true, but the fact that an unqualified person made the claim does not provide any rational reason to accept the claim as true.

You know, sort of like how pseudo-skeptic organizations will find some guy with a physics degree who denies AGW, thus committing a fallacious appeal to authority.

An appeal to an authority where the person is in fact an authority is not fallacious. Would you rather everyone who quotes a climatologist put in a full bibliography? In other words, your complaint is bullshit.

If someone is quoting Al Gore, well, that's a fallacious appeal to authority. If someone is citing NASA atmospheric scientists, that is a legitimate citation.

-- Relying on the Pope for information on the tenets of the Catholic Church = proper appeal to authority.
-- Relying on the Pope for sex tips to drive the ladies wild = fallacious appeal to authority.

Also, just because you don't know the concise statements of a falsifiable hypothesis for AGW doesn't mean they don't exist. Might I suggest you make a proper appeal to authority/ (Hint: they don't have AM talk radio shows)

I would suggest to you that if you believe in AGW, and cannot identify those concise statements, you are operating in terms of a religion, not science.

Firstly, the physics behind the greenhouse gas hypothesis in general and CO2 in particular has been known for over a hundred years (thank you, Arrhenius). The global impact of an atmosphere with significant opacity to the spectrum of a planet's expected blackbody temperature given its distance from the Sun is easily observed for the Earth-similar planet Ven

I'm almost certainly wasting my time here, since if you cared to find out you'd know that there are many ways climate change theories could be falsified , but here's something real quick off the top of my head.

Hypothesis: Fossil carbon locked in the earth's crust, when released into the earth's atmosphere, will increase the atmosphere's CO2 concentration, improving the atmosphere's ability to retain heat via the greenhouse effect, thereby causing global warming.

Here's the thing. For domains where I have a solid basis to form an opinion, I am perfectly willing to do deep reading to from my own opinion on the subject. I do not, however, have a solid basis in climatology. I wouldn't have the faintest idea of how to synthesize the raw data available into a working model or even critique somebody else's. The only sane option I have in this (and very many other) fields is to trust those who make it their life work to study the field. Are you really so arrogant as to think you are any different?

In the case of our politicians, usually their fields of expertise extend to business and law. They don't have any basis other than listening to the authorities in the field to even begin having a reasonable opinion on the subject, or any other scientific field of study. If the experts are legitimately conflicted, then they have to make tough decisions, and hopefully do so with the humbleness required to see that they are flying blind. If the experts in the field largely agree, which is more or less true per GP with regard to global warming, then our politicians should be using that as a basis for policy (while still, of course, reasonably hedging their bets in case they are wrong and we find new, more appropriate models as the science advances).

Now, the only way I can get anything like that out of my politicians is if the general populace stops thinking that reading blogs for 30 minutes gives them the required basis to have a meaningful opinion on a subject. It's cool that you are into science and all, but unless you have the skill set required to critically analyze research papers on climatology, there is no "we" that should do anything regarding the research presented. There is only a "they", and the "they" is made up of climatologists working in the field. And do you know what answer "they" have given us? It's that "... the main cause of the current global warming trend is human expansion of the 'greenhouse effect'" per the article listed above.

If we keep electing politicians that think they know better just because they agree with our own poorly-informed views, it's eventually going to be the death of us all.

I'm not defending the article in question, but this one is just a big a pile of crap as the other.

Granted, the original had a sensationalist headline and the article was distinctly written from a skeptic's perspective.

However - shouldn't we be looking at the raw data and either confirming or debunking it?

To Paraphrase this article: "You don't to need to see the data because people who stand the most to lose if this research is right are telling you it is bull. And you shouldn't ask any questions because the guy who did the research doesn't agree with the people this research doesn't support. Oh, and did we mention he thinks there's a creator? So it's only an *IF* he's right, and we've already explained that we don't need to verify this because, as you can see, he's just some crazy bastard who took funding from an energy company. We don't see any reason to go beyond the *if* and neither should you. Yeah, he's a corrupt, quack job for sure.. nothing to see here..."

I want to see the scientific proof, not the "he doesn't think like most of us so this article is flawed" bullshit.

Give me *real* scientific process.

Seriously - WTF happened to the scientific process? By this measuring stick, both articles are flawed. Can we get back to the real question now?

The goal is to scientifically understand our environment so we can make better predictions and protect it. Nobody I know wants dirty air or polluted water; climate change proponent or skeptic. So can we kindly STFU with that kind of crap and focus on finding the truth instead of trying to gain political points and power?

Most climate science on both sides of the argument is on shaky ground. I totally agree with Freeman Dyson.

My first heresy says that all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated. Here I am opposing the holy brotherhood of climate model experts and the crowd of deluded citizens who believe the numbers predicted by the computer models. Of course, they say, I have no degree in meteorology and I am therefore not qualified to speak. But I have studied the climate models and I know what they can do. T

These folk believe, among other things, that God will not allow the Earth to be harmed by Global Warming:

"The world is in the grip of an idea: that burning fossil fuels to provide affordable, abundant energy is causing global warming that will be so dangerous that we must stop it by reducing our use of fossil fuels, no matter the cost. Is that idea true? We believe not. We believe that idea – we'll call it "global warming alarmism" – fails the tests of theology, science, and economics."

People get so worked up over this shit. This isn't science - the "science" is pretty inconclusive otherwise there wouldn't be so much name calling. Nah, this is politics. And politics has absolutely nothing to do with science.

You have fudged data from the last century or so and think you've got a model that shows anything whatsoever? This is not to say AGW proponents are right or wrong- just that they haven't the foggiest as they've not honestly done any science with the subject yet.

Sigh... citation needed.

A real citation too. Not just speculation, potential for bias, alleged scientific misconduct. Show me the proof that the entire field is "fudging the data". And when I say proof, I do not mean other researchers trash talking, I mean actual data of fudged data. Because I suspect you are fudging it more than they are.

Now, perhaps this fudging of the data wasn't malicious (in fact, I'll argue that it was done with the best of intentions), and perhaps some of the fudges actually have a reasonable rationale that we can agree upon - but let's not pretend that there is a magical thermometer we can stick in the air, and get the current Global Average Temperature (much less a magical thermometer we can read from 1000 years ago to do the same thing). At best, this is a field over-reliant on proxy data, and *everyone* should be skeptical of that sort of weak science.

All I see there is a giant train of thought log from a scientist trying to get a dataset and a program to play nice.

This happens in science. I have a friend who's just completed a Phd in Psychology. She found it necessary to learn how to code in Perl in order to get the datasets she was working with in a useful form. Now, bear in mind this is someone who, whilst very clever, has no prior experience writing code beyond the odd Excel macro. Can you imagine how much of a hack those Perl scripts must be?

Thankfully AGW models from lots of different sources match up with each other and historical data to a large degree, so overall AGW is good science.

maybe that's because of code like this,function mkp2correlation,indts,depts,remts,t,filter=filter,refperiod=refperiod,$datathresh=datathresh;; THIS WORKS WITH REMTS BEING A 2D ARRAY (nseries,ntime) OF MULTIPLE TIMESERIES; WHOSE INFLUENCE IS TO BE REMOVED. UNFORTUNATELY THE IDL5.4 p_correlate; FAILS WITH >1 SERIES TO HOLD CONSTANT, SO I HAVE TO REMOVE THEIR INFLUENCE; FROM BOTH INDTS AND DEPTS USING MULTIPLE LINEAR REGRESSION AND THEN USE THE; USUAL correlate FUNCTION ON THE RESIDUALS.;pro maps12,yrstart,

I'm not going make a statement one way or the other on fudged data. If his actions were clearly inappropriate there are plenty of scientific bodies whose only reason for existence is managing scientific professional integrity. If he has done something truly inappropriate, he will be dealt with.

What I will respond to is THE VAST body of work pointing to dramatic changes in global climate. I ask those with an ideological position to defend, to stop for just a moment look at the remarkable amount of indisputab

Say, 15 years of no statistically significant warming, but continuously rising CO2 levels?

15 years may not be enough. It all depends on the data, and its noise and trend. A weak trend combined with a lot of noise may not be statistically significant over a 15 year period.

Current warming trend is about 0.017 deg C, which means a.26 degree warming in 15 years. Year to year variation (noise) can be 0.4 degrees, so it's easy to see how the noise can swamp the data in such a short period.

Also, if the rising CO2 is combined with other factors, such as increased aerosols, La-Nina effects, or a less active sun, the warming may be less. In order to falsify AGW due to CO2, those effects must not be present at the same time in an amount that would be sufficient to counteract the CO2.

Nevertheless, a simple test is to keep emitting lots of CO2 and measure the effects on a much longer timescale (say 40 years from now, compare a 15 year average temperature with one from the 20th century). If no warmer, there's a problem with the theory. So it's definitely falsifiable by any reasonable definition. Of course, if AGW is right, by then it'll be too late to do anything.

Actually, no. You didn't take into account additional factors. No matter how much CO2 we pump into atmosphere, a big enough drop in energy inputs will cause cooling anyway.

"The claim is that we need to live like hippies and give all our money to Al Gore and friends or THE ENTIRE EARTH WILL BE RUINED FOREVER."no one claims that. Only people claiming that people claim that.

" But global warming isn't a scientific issue - it's a political issue, "No, it's a scientific issue, what to do about it is a political issue.

" so you've picked your side (democrat) "hahaha, now your boiling it down to the side of the Aisle?democrats like:Arnold SchwarzeneggerJon Huntsman
Olympia SnoweSusan Collins
Chris Smith
Tim PawlentyBob Inglis

oh, wait those are all republicans, my mistake.

In order to support their religious base, The POLITICAL stance of the republicans has been 'no global warming' however if yo look at many of them and there votes, you can see a different picture.But hey, I actually pay attention to these details, and like researching what different representatives vote for,.What I don't understand is people like you, who are provably wrong, that keep on spouting your lies. Why?

It's because everyone's operational default mode is set to "I am right all of the time". As in, there is no cognition of error at all. Every single one of us on Earth at this exact moment operates under the assumption that everything we see, think, and believe in is "right". No one lives in a state of perpetual error, because error is a reversion of thinking, of being. And it's not a pleasant state to be in.

When you prove someone wrong, from your perspective, you are correcting someone's interpretation of

It worries me how many legitimate articles on climate change may be hiding because they are against current predictions and models, and researchers are fearing public lynching . It's truly worrying.

There is no need to worry. Anti-consensus articles have no trouble seeing the light of day even when they are chock full of specious reasoning. Anti-consensus scientists have no trouble getting funding (e.g. Soon, Baliunas, Spencer, Chritie, McIntyre, McKitrick). These articles are thoroughly examined and debunked every time. (See here [realclimate.org] for an example of scientific discourse on these issues.)

The only people saying "We have to tax anyone heavily to fight global warming" are people who are opposed to doing anything about global warming. If you're opposed to legislative action, an effective tactic is to paint it in the most extreme terms possible, but doing so is pretty scummy and shameless. "You want to reform patent law? Well you're just going to do away with all patents and all products and we're going to be living in CAVES!!!"

Carbon taxes are necessarily going to be a part of the solution, yes, but the effect could and would be offset by tax breaks elsewhere. Hell, for some reason tax breaks are a part of the debt reduction plans, to think that businesses would fail miserably under a mountain of taxes because we're trying to reduce pollution is nonsense and not backed up by history.

Nice of you to speak up for those poor widdle corporations though against those big, mean treehuggers, by the way.

Also, if you read the article -really closely- (IE, with your eyes) you'll notice that the reasons they give have nothing to do with dogmatic beliefs.

I disagree with your premises. Why would we need any carbon tax if global warming is beneficial to the biosphere and humanity as a whole (see: Medieval Warm Period).

Put another way, how would you feel if I demanded that all governments around the world provide massive carbon *subsidies* (on the level of what they put, per MW, to say, solar and wind), because I believe that a warm world is a good world, and that CO2 helps warm the planet?

Frankly, the libertarian position of "leave me alone" works either way - the government intervention position has to be *completely correct* in order for it to be beneficial (and let's take a wild guess about how often that happens).

I'd gladly leave you libertarians alone - somewhere where you only can fuck up your own life without dragging down everyone else. But for some reason, you won't move to Somalia. Besides, enjoy the heat and dust in the southwest. It's a sign of more to come, consistent with all models. Fun with the warmer climate.

Frankly, the libertarian position of "leave me alone" works either way - the government intervention position has to be *completely correct* in order for it to be beneficial (and let's take a wild guess about how often that happens).

Wait - why does the libertarian position work either way? Also: one complaint I've had about libertarians in the past is their unwillingness to allow for government regulation of anything ("the market will sort it all out"). When I mention things like pollution, libertarian

"According to a report in the British Medical Journal, use of DDT in Mozambique "was stopped several decades ago, because 80% of the country's health budget came from donor funds, and donors refused to allow the use of DDT." Roger Bate asserts, "many countries have been coming under pressure from international health and environment agencies to give up DDT or face losing aid grants: Belize and Bolivia are on record admitting they gave in to pressure on this issue from [USAID].""

I believe that a warm world is a good world, and that CO2 helps warm the planet?

You see, this isn't a matter of belief. We're not talking about the premise of your religion here. All of the range of scientific projections on what the planet will be like if warmed a few degrees, or more, are of a far less comfortable place to live, with far less carrying capacity, leading to a whole lot of death and dislocation for human populations. You may believe that human life is evil, and so all this would please whatever beings you worship. Yes, we have sociopaths among humanity who have no compassion for other human beings. But it's not the majority of us, even if it's a large subset of the self-identified "libertarians" who like to go all Pollyanna about what a few degrees C in rise in average temperature will do to the quality of life - particularly human life.

Why would we need any carbon tax if global warming is beneficial to the biosphere and humanity as a whole (see: Medieval Warm Period).

In skimming the wiki article on the medival warm period [wikipedia.org] I came across a graph that made it look like the Earth had already warmed more than the medieval warm period. And another source pointed that out [skepticalscience.com] though I'm not sure how serious to take that website.

At any rate, you seem to be saying that "The weather being warm was good for Vikings hundreds of years ago" and taking that to imply that temperatures going up is always "beneficial to the biosphere and humanity as a whole" which doesn't seem like a sou

If you do harm to others, even without intent, you should pick up the tab for the damages. Anything less is a handout to *you* from everyone you've harmed, or from those on whom the costs fall. (Usually taxpayers.)

I'm not yet certain of the amount of harm done, nor of how the costs should be apportioned. I do, however, see a great many people trying to avoid responsibility for their own actions, and hoping that if the axe does fall, it will fall on someone else.

Indeed. I prefer the religion of Roy Spencer (co-author of the study and research scientist), who signed a document stating:

"We believe Earth and its ecosystems — created by God’s intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence — are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting, admirably suited for human flourishing, and displaying His glory. Earth's climate system is no exception."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Spencer_(scientist) [wikipedia.org]

You're right, massive temperature trends over decades are exactly the same as predicting whether it will rain or just be cloudy on Tuesday. We should definitely ignore the massive upward curve (http://www.indorphyn.com/06/2006/global-warming/) showing rising temperatures and sing "la la la la" with our fingers in our ears until global warming hits us in the nuts unawares.

Still no statement of a falsifiable hypothesis, although it seems like you're asserting a lesser form of AGW, rather than CAGW (the difference being, AGW could very well be benign, and something we should *encourage*).

Even if we cannot discern any other single factor that would "explain" observed warming does *not* mean that the default explanation *must* be CO2, nor does it prove that the results of warming (any warming) would be catastrophic. Tell me what observations would possibly shake your "absolute

Reproduce the results? The bulk of it is observational data. This is precisely the kind of ill-informed science illiterate claptrap that pisses me off. You don't know how science works. The data is the data, the explanations of that data certainly can be debated. This is no different than saying "I don't see a videotape of apes evolving into man, so therefore, it isn't falsifiable."